


FIC: Biophilia (The Illustrated Edition)

by deslea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 3D, Angst, Art, Azkaban, Character Study, Dementors, F/M, Fanart, Fic, First War, Horcruxes, Illustrated Fic, Insanity, Legilimency, Manipulation of Memories, Mental Illness, Psychological Drama, Pureblood Society, off-camera rape, second war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-06 11:41:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deslea/pseuds/deslea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Bellatrix/Voldemort psychological drama, running parallel to canon, tracing their relationship of convenience and how it changes them both. (The non-con is not between Bella and Voldemort). <b>Note:</b> Graphic-heavy illustrated edition (17 artworks, 5MB total). Text-only available <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116">here</a>.</p><p><span class="u">Biophilia</span>, from Voldemort's point of view, explores his barriers to loving, how Bella understands his behaviour, and how she has adapted and maintained her own agency.</p><p><span class="u">Chameleon</span>, from Bella's point of view during the First War, explores how she achieved an intimacy of sorts with him, and what needs of hers are met in the absence of love.</p><p><span class="u">Not Loveless</span>, from Bella's point of view, explores the way Voldemort's disfigurement has increased his openness to her, and her own resilience and self-reliance that allows her to love him, without need of love in return. We also see what Narcissa makes of it all.</p><p><span class="u">Dark Knight</span>, from Voldemort's point of view, explores Bella's insanity after Azkaban, and the push-pull between her fragility and her inner strength, and his own push-pull between reluctant tenderness and utilitarian good sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Biophilia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Nagini is slithering around his body as he thinks of other things, he simply ceases to notice her. Rather like Bella, in fact. It is an unawareness he would allow only with them, these two females bound to him by expedience, and enjoyed by chance.

  
**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  


* * *

"She's beautiful."

Bella says this in a rare moment of lucidity. Her madness is a capricious thing, flaring up without warning, sometimes as fury, sometimes frustration, then softening to a gentle bubbling of imbalance and hilarity and whimsy. 

She is as scarred by their years apart as he, but where his takes the form of disfigurement, hers is an interior thing. Merlin knows, he misses the charisma he once had, easy persuasion smoothed along by good looks and a veneer of good humour, but he still has his mind. She does not, and in her clearer moments, she knows it, and grieves for it. It tinges her devotion, so gratifying to him, with a reflectiveness that disconcerts him. 

He has never _loved_ her, but he has enjoyed her attention, oh yes. It has pleased him down the decades, enough for him to tolerate her intimacies and her liberties and her minor disobediences when they are alone. He values her fear and her devotion both, but fear is common and devotion rare.

"Who is beautiful?" he wonders now. She is standing in the doorway, watching him with a gentle, and completely sane look on her face. But she's looking directly at him and he can't imagine who she might mean.

She passes over the threshold that separates her bedroom from his. Lucius had not thought to query whether Bella would be resuming her role as his mistress, though he had left her in Azkaban for six months after his return. 

He would have left her longer, but by then it was clear that his disfigurement was permanent. He is accustomed to perfection and now it is gone. He sees it in the faces of his soldiers, men who had once admired as well as feared him. The only one who sees his magnificence anymore is her. He would not admit to anyone, but it stings. It stings badly. For that alone, he intends to kill Potter himself.

She had become his mistress as a girl of twenty. He had been looking for a suitable one for a while by then, and had almost given up on finding one. His unmarried status had become a serious issue for his political credibility. The aristocratic social stratum was built on marriage, and his lack of it was taken for latent irresponsibility and a lack of integration into the conventions of their society. And, too, as his first generation of followers reached middle age, they grew suspicious of his single-mindedness; they would have trusted him more, they said among themselves, if he had the steadying presence of a good woman behind him.

He would not countenance marriage, but by way of concession, he began the search for a female companion. She must be married, but already estranged from her husband, to avoid discord among his followers. She must be without children, as he could not abide them. Bella's marriage had buckled within a year under the weight of her husband's proclivities, which ran to his own sex. It was not an uncommon outcome for marriages arranged so young, but usually there had been time for a child first. They lived in amicable separation under a single roof and a paper-thin veneer of married respectability.

So she had become his lover with no loss of goodwill, and to his surprise, the arrangement had been agreeable as well as expedient. Flattery was a common part of his life back then, but invariably connected to an agenda or a motive. That did not disrupt his enjoyment, but it required evaluation and a clear head, too. Bella's flattery, he gradually realised, was utterly sincere. The simplicity of dealing with her was refreshing; the unconditional admiration pleasing. She simply adored him, fanatically, devotedly, with no other loyalty than him.

She still does. Even now.

She sits now on the chair beside his bed, where he sits upright, leaning against the headboard. "Her," she says softly by way of answer. "She's beautiful."

It takes him a second. Nagini is so much a part of him that sometimes he forgets she's there. He is aware of her when he pets her, but when she is slithering around his body as he thinks of other things, he simply ceases to notice her. Rather like Bella, in fact. It is an unawareness he would allow only with them, these two females bound to him by expedience, and enjoyed by chance.

She reaches out to touch, and he opens his mouth to command Nagini to allow it, but to his surprise, the snake is already arcing into her hand. She strokes the snake's face with tenderness, tracing a gentle finger between unblinking eyes, then down between nostrils flaring gently with breath. Nagini watches with interest, stretching out beneath her touch.

Watching them, he feels something, vague but intolerable, and he doesn't know why.

"She kept you alive," she says, still petting the snake. "She still does."

Appalled, too stunned to lie, he demands, "How do you know that?"

Bella looks up at him, with a look of confusion that suggests that the answer is obvious. "I feel you with me. In her. Even when you're not here."

He wants to sneer at her - she isn't prone to sentimentality - but it is exactly that fact that stops him. The sentience of the Horcruxes is fact, not girlish imagining. He learned it to his cost when he learned the fate of his diary (damn Lucius for that!) and he learned it again with Nagini. And Bella, of all people, would know what a Horcrux was - and that it was well within his capability and inclinations.

His fingers twitch for a wand, but settle just as quickly. He could Obliviate her and she would just deduce the truth all over again.

"Bellatrix. You're verifiably, clinically insane," he says bluntly. "How on earth can I trust you to keep such knowledge safe?"

"I don't need to be _sane_ not to tell," she says with an air of surprise. "I just need to _love_. And I know you don't believe in it, but you can't deny it compels people. Even me."

"Of course I believe in it," he snaps irritably. "Did you think I would fail to notice an observable weakness that affects the entire population?"

"I meant you didn't believe in it for yourself," she says complacently, and returns her attention to the snake.

He doesn't really have an answer for that, other than the obvious truism that this is so, and she doesn't seem to require one.

"She's beautiful," she says again, after a moment.

"You already said that."

She looks up at him. "You didn't hear me."

It dawns on him that she means him. That her loving fingers on Nagini's face are for him and what he has become.

That intolerable thing flares up, filling his head with blinding pain. His face closes up and his jaw grows hard and he bites out, "Leave."

_[Biophilia 1: Nagini](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-1-Nagini-422717641) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

She doesn't. She climbs onto the bed and straddles him before he can stop her. Takes his face - his _wretched_ face - between her hands and kisses him, more tenderly than she's ever kissed him. He grasps her by the wrists and wrenches them hard behind her back to stop her, but the move keeps his hands as occupied as hers, so there's nothing left to stop her when she keeps leaning forward to kiss him without them.

"You don't have to love me," she says softly. "I've never asked and I never will. But let me love you."

It is something only a wife could say without leave, and for all practical purposes, that's what she is. So he allows it, gritting his teeth at first, then weakening. He always does. He is disciplined, yes, but not made of stone, and she is a woman and she adores him. It was a heady combination before, and more so now.

"Let me," she says again, tugging on her hands, and he lets her. Closes his eyes as her palms come to rest on his ruined face. Feels warring fury and pleasure as she strokes him there.

_[Biophilia 2: Let Me](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-2-Let-Me-422719104) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

"Enough!" he snaps at last. 

She lifts her hands off him instantly, sensing as always when she has pushed him to his limit. Pulls back and sits there, straddling his hips, and waits. Expression grave.

Tentatively, he puts his hand on her décolleté. Traces it down over the cream-coloured silk of her robe to rest between her breasts. "Enough," he says again, but it is a whisper. 

She nods.

His fingers find the overlapping edges of her robe and part them, and his hands fall on skin stretched over bone where once there had been curves. He feels fury rising once more. It is an insult to him, what they have done to her, stealing her mind and half her body too, and they will pay.

"I'll kill them for this," he says in a low voice, looking her square in the eye. "I'll kill them all. I'll kill everyone who's ever set _foot_ in that place."

"I know," she whispers, smiling a sad sort of smile, and leans in to kiss him once more, drawing her body up against him and pushing clothes away. He grasps her robe at the back of her neck and wrenches it down off her. Wrenches her down onto him, shoving up into her fiercely with his teeth bared like he can fuck it all better, fuck away her melancholy and her madness and the hollows of her hips beneath his hands if he can just fuck her hard enough. Like he can fuck the pieces of her back together. The pieces of them both.

"They'll pay," he hisses as their foreheads rest together, and she takes it for words of love, chin trembling and her mouth urgently feeding on his.

He started too fast and finishes the same way, but she doesn't complain. She never does. Just nestles into his lap and takes care of herself, choking out fragments of all the endearments she has for him in lieu of the names he won't let her speak. It is his seed that she uses to do it and him that she kisses while she does it. Him that she braces against, hand on his shoulder as she crests and falls. He doesn't hold her, but he lets her hold him, and to her, it seems, one is as good as the other. It always was.

She may be broken, but she isn't lost. 

Not to him.

* * *

"I know why you did it."

Bella says this some days later, in her first completely lucid moment since. He has become accustomed to conversations that carry over from one clear moment to another, as though there had been no interruption in between.

"Know why I did what?" he wonders absently. They are sitting in the great dining room of Malfoy Manor, after the others have gone. His soldiers are gathering intelligence about the prophecy that led to his last, near-fatal encounter with the wretched Potter boy, and things are moving into high gear. This particular meeting had gone well into the night.

But now, they are alone, and the fire is low. He likes it better that way. In this light, she looks like a fragile little wraith, and somehow that eases his discontent at what she knows about him, what she could do to him if she were so inclined.

She never will - he knows that. If he doubted it for even a moment he would kill her, but he doesn't. The threat nags at him, though, just on general principles.

But he has already hidden a Horcrux with Lucius, who knew something of its value but not the reason for it, and it had backfired badly. Bella knows of one - two, now; he has hidden another in her vault - and while he will never tell her of them all, he knows she will fight for the two she knows about with every breath in her body. 

That, and her fragility - the fact that he could snap her in two like a brittle little twig - they ease that nagging disquiet.

The other thing he likes about the firelight is the way it softens her features, softens the hard angles and hides the teeth that have grown in crooked where once they were straight. It is the same way with him; warm tones overlay his alabaster skin and he can almost believe that he is what he was. That they both are.

"I know why you made them," she says. Her chair is pushed back from the table, angled towards his, and her hand is absent-mindedly laid over his. One shoe hangs off her toes, outlined in the firelight, and she is looking pensively into the fire, not at him.

"Go on," he says. He could care less about her theories about his psyche, but he likes to keep tabs on what she thinks, and more importantly, _how_ she thinks. It is important intelligence in the light of her madness. Should her lucid self show signs of deterioration, he may need to act.

_You mean you may need to kill her._

He may need to _act_.

"You fear death because it takes the people who love you. Or would have loved you. And you fear love because the people who love you can die." 

She lets the cryptic statement hang in the air without further elaboration. Not even she can speak directly of his mother without punishment. She learned that decades ago. He has never used the _Crucio_ on her in public - the loss of goodwill would be instant - and it is the only time he has ever done it in private.

But that was a long time ago, he is basking in the illusion of a beauty past, and he's not going to fight with her tonight.

He says only, "You are impertinent, Bella. You always have been."

She shrugs. Idly tracing her fingertips across the back of his hand on the arm of his chair, still staring into the fire. "Everyone likes to be loved. Even if they don't love back."

It grates, that she knows this about him. 

"It's why you like to have me with you, isn't it? For all my impertinence and my madness and for all that you wish you didn't."

He pulls his hand away. "Stop this."

She rises unconcernedly and begins to walk away, and it breaks the fragile illusion of what he used to be. He sees the dead white skin of his hand with hers taken away and suddenly feels angry. Angry and cold.

"Bella," he says sharply, then stops. He will not give her the satisfaction of knowing he wants her back.

But she turns back to him, and she doesn't look satisfied. There is a strange look on her face, indecipherable. Almost sad. It lingers just for a second, then evaporates as she returns to him and kneels before him. Tilts her face up towards him, and he leans forward and takes her face hard between his hands, and kisses her, just as hard. Her pulse throbs, firm and alive against his fingers on her neck.

"I'll never leave you," she whispers as he lays her down in the firelight. "Never."

_[Biophilia 3: Never Leave You](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-3-Never-Leave-You-422747720) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

_Yes, you will,_ he thinks. _You will die._

He sinks into her warmth in the firelight, with the thought left unsaid.

* * *

Potter. That damned Potter.

He had eluded them again, and at the cost of several of his soldiers, too. (Though he took a secret satisfaction in Lucius' imprisonment; while not convenient, it was, in his view, poetic justice that was long overdue).

Bella had taken to her room days before and not come out. Unaccustomed to failure, she had been inconsolable at the loss of the Prophecy, even after it became clear that her only punishment was his disappointment. (And even this was not too great; she had only been backup, designed to distract Longbottom and separate Potter from his friends in the process, and in this she had succeeded. He would never tell her so).

He might have commanded her to pull herself together, but he had deduced, correctly, that his followers would interpret her seclusion as a sign of greater recriminations behind closed doors. It raised their fear and their compliance to fever pitch. That was no bad thing.

Now, he watches her from the threshold that separates his bedroom from hers. She sleeps fitfully; has done ever since Azkaban. But the hitching breaths, aftermath of sobs, are new.

They haven't spoken since the Department of Mysteries. 

He hasn't even begun to comprehend what happened there. He'd had Potter within his grasp, mind and body under his control. He'd begun to manipulate them, Potter and Dumbledore both, and had seen the fury, the latent power-hunger in the old man begin to rise up. Dumbledore had been, he believed, only seconds from killing the boy, believing it would kill _him_ , comforting himself with the paper-thin fantasy that he had freed the boy from his suffering in the process.

It would have been oh, so poetic, Dumbledore's human chess piece killed by Dumbledore himself, but something had gone wrong.

 _End it, Dumbledore,_ Potter had implored, mindlessly trying to reach his poisonous mentor with his thoughts. _Death is nothing to this. And I'll see Sirius again._ [1]

Then emotion had flooded through the boy, terrible, rending grief for his blood traitor godfather. It had seared through him, unbearable. An image had flashed in his mind, stolen from the mind of Mrs Cole long ago, his mother holding him in death, present yet utterly gone. There was blinding pain deep in his head, spots of light in his vision. He had _pulled_ out of the boy, stood over him for just one horrified split-second before he saw the flashes of emerald light and streams of movement from the Floos.

 _Bella._

She was weeping, pinned to the floor by the remains of Dumbledore's wretched charmed statue, and beyond her, the Minister for Magic and his staff were standing, staring at them in horror. Fudge looked comical in striped pyjamas under pinstriped robes, but he had been in no mood to appreciate the humour. The thought leapt into his head, fully-formed, and spoke in a low, deadly voice:

_They'll kill her._

He was there in two strides, the rubble shifting to free her ahead of him, and he wrenched her up by the arm and Disapparated.

He had brought her back to the Manor, thrust her down on the stone floor, and told her sister roughly to put her to bed. Then he had stormed out, stalking through the grounds, striking out at trees and the creatures of the night. Magical lights had showered over the grounds that night as he lashed out his fury and his aching, aching head. He had returned to his followers keeping vigil in the dining room, trembling as they awaited his retribution.

Since then he has been torn between reliving his horror at the prospect of her death and serious consideration of killing her himself. He is too exposed by her now. He should end it before someone realises it.

He could do it now, he supposes. She's asleep; it would be peaceful. More peaceful than she is likely to get remaining at his side. He could give her that.

Couldn't he?

He approaches her, and sees that Nagini is curled up with her, and he recognises in the part of himself that lives in _her_ the unpalatable thing that he cannot recognise in himself. 

_He will never kill her._

All right, he thinks, this at least is a fact. It has parameters. He can work with it.

He thinks it over, standing over her. Thinks coldly and strategically and dispassionately.

The prospect of her death weakens him. Therefore, she must not be allowed to die.

"Bellatrix," he says sharply.

She starts from her light slumber. "Yes," she whispers. 

Nagini, he notes with considerable annoyance, slithers protectively around her.

He cups his hands before his mouth and exhales into them, wordlessly casting the charm. He opens his hands to reveal a corked vial. 

He hands it to her. Careful not to touch. He will not touch her until it is done.

"Igor Karkaroff is in the North," he says. "Yaxley can tell you where. Take Nagini, and kill him. You must be sure to do it yourself. As he dies, break the vial. My voice will do the rest." He turns from her and strides back to the threshold to his room.

"Do the rest of _what?"_ she wonders as he reaches it.

He doesn't look at her. "Nagini will be your Horcrux too," he says brusquely. "Keep her safe."

He hears her intake of breath, and slams the door before she can say anything more.

* * *

She returns, three days later, in triumph.

Nagini precedes her into his bedroom, greeting him with a new and deeper affection, and that is when he knows it is done.

She appears on the threshold moments later.

She stands there, eyes a little wild, backlit by the fire in her bedroom. Her hands are raised, pressed flat to the sides of the doorway, bracing her. She is trembling with exhilaration. Those hands seem to be all that hold her to the ground.

_[Biophilia 4: Threshold](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-4-Threshold-422719673) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

He holds out a hand to her. "Come."

That releases her. She stalks across the room, tearing her clothes open and letting them fall away. She straddles him in long, kneeling strides up the bed, vanishing his own as she presses down hard into his lap. She steals deep, hungry kisses that leave him breathless. Nagini hisses out a sound that echoes his own as he grips her hard against him, tangling his hand deep in her hair. Her pupils are big and dark as he descends on her, kissing her more fervently than he's ever kissed her.

"I'm yours," she chokes out, "I'm always yours," and at last, it is absolute truth.

For the first time, when they're done, he holds her too.

* * *

They feel it, him and Bella both, when Nagini falls in the final battle.

The snake is the last of his Horcruxes, and the only of hers. Mother of this hateful body of his, vessel for their strange bond, and only child of this thing they share. And in the end, the snake's false promise of immortality had let him love her. 

She is beside him when it happens, the unnoticed consort, and her scream gives voice to his silent one when Nagini's head falls at their feet. 

A lifetime compresses into an instant as it all starts to crumble around them.

 _Avenge me, before the end,_ she thinks in the silence of his mind. _Me and Nagini both._

 _They will feel the full force of everything they took from us,_ he thinks. _They will feel it a hundredfold. They will pay._ [2]

She slips her hand into his, just for a second before the stampeding hordes part them, and then they charge into battle for the final time.

_[Biophilia 5: The End](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-5-The-End-422720155) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

END OF BIOPHILIA

**Book References:**

[1] _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,_ Ch. 36.  
[2] _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,_ Ch. 36: "Voldemort screamed...[and his] fury at the fall of his last, best lieutenant exploded with the force of a bomb..."

* * *

**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  



	2. Chameleon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Lord does not ask for advice. He enters minds and takes the knowledge he needs by stealth. It is how he assimilated into a foreign world.

  
**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  


* * *

"The Dark Lord wishes to court you."

It is her husband who says this, of all people, eighteen months into their wreck of a marriage. Bellatrix arches an eyebrow of supreme surprise.

"He is aware of our... _domestic circumstances,"_ Rodolphus clarifies. "He would not ask otherwise."

"I'm sure," she agrees. "But I'm not marriageable." She does not believe that Rodolphus will release her from their union, even for the Dark Lord. He clings to it, protection and respectability for his forbidden desires, the young men to which she turns a blind eye.

"I don't believe he wants marriage. He's married to the Cause. But he would like the company of a good woman. His advisers have been telling him to seek one for a long time. It seems he has finally seen sense."

She suppresses a rather grim smile at that. Even Rodolphus believes in the value of a good woman. She isn't all that good, and he doesn't want one, but societal mores die hard.

But the Dark Lord does not embrace social mores, except to the extent that they serve the Cause. Which raises the fascinating question of what he wants with _her._

She can make a reasonable guess, she supposes. She has, after all, greater access than most of her peers. Her amicable, but loveless marriage has emancipated her, after a fashion. With her husband's support, she was allowed to take the Mark, allowed to fight, something normally allowed only to widows and spinsters. It was an early effort on Rodolphus' part at making amends.

So she has heard the whispers of the men, the Dark Lord's boyhood friends who have taken wives and children, and are now as suspicious of his solitary nature as once they admired it. Once he was a bachelor among bachelors, but now he is an outsider. He is a half-blooded orphan, embraced by the peerage on the basis of his exceptional powers and his ability to integrate, and now, that acceptance is in danger. Even his second generation of soldiers are beginning to marry, even those with other inclinations such as Rodolphus, and he is being left behind.

Perhaps, then, if he is not inclined to the full set of requirements of married life, a woman such as her would be a means to an end. Her situation is known among the inner circle of aristocracy, dirty linen sheltered from the wider public. He could take her as a mistress without scandal. They would be viewed with sympathy, accepted as married without benefit of ceremony. He would earn respect and acceptance for his participation in the protection of Rodolphus.

The only question that remains is whether she is willing to be courted for the purpose.

There is a heady kind of attraction about him, of course. An irresistible combination of power, good looks, intelligence, and charisma. He has effortlessly charmed generations of men and women into doing his will. She has felt it herself, to the detached extent that she ever allows herself to feel such things. Such feelings are not helpful when one is married to a man who refuses to share one's bed.

And what else is there for her, anyway? Endless years waiting in endless drawing rooms as Rodolphus takes his pleasure? There _might_ be another unconventional suitor down the track for her, but there might not. And there is no guarantee that Rodolphus will give his blessing for anyone else. He has been as decent as he can be in the situation in which they have found themselves, honest with her as soon as it became clear that he was unable to be a husband to her, but no man of his breeding would easily agree to share his wife. Even if he didn't want her himself.

Rodolphus is waiting. Watching her think it over.

"Very well," she says at last. "He may call on me. You'll make the arrangements?"

Rodolphus nods. "I will." Then, hesitantly, he adds, "I do want you to be happy, you know."

She knows.

_[Chameleon 1: Be Happy](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Chameleon-1-Be-Happy-422720539) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

* * *

"The Dark Lord wishes me to spend my life with him."

She says this two months into their courtship, which has been conducted entirely according to the rules of their world, with the exception that permission and chaperone duties have been provided by her husband and not her father. As with all such courtships, she has reached this moment with little knowledge of her intended as a person.

Her father grimaces a little. She has been careful to avoid the word _mistress_ , and their courtship has been accepted by their peers in view of all the circumstances, but it is still not quite seemly enough for his tastes. Left up to him, she would waste away as a discarded wife for the rest of her life. She is not willing to do that.

"Before I consent," she goes on, ignoring the grimace, "I need to know who he is. I need to know _why_ he's...why he's the way he is." She does not need to elaborate; Narcissa has voiced the obvious at the dinner table more than once. The Dark Lord, for all his charisma, does not seem like the type to be a loving companion to _anyone_.

"I know you know," she goes on. "You were boys together. You were his friend."

"As much as any of us were, I suppose," her father concedes. He is sitting in his big armchair near the hearth, and now his gaze drifts to the fire. "But I really can't tell you."

Undeterred, she says, "You can. You must."

"There's really nothing I can tell you." He points his wand into the fire and shifts the burning cuts of wood, watching as the flames spring up higher and warmer. "The subject is closed, Bellatrix."

Anger flares in her. "You knew what Rodolphus was when you married me to him, didn't you?" she demands. "You owe me this!"

His gaze darts to hers, then away again. He sits back into his chair, a little morosely. "I thought he'd settle down. Grow out of it. Most do."

"Or just get better at hiding it," she snaps. Says again, "You _owe_ me this."

Her father's brow furrows a little, but then he rises. Thoughtfully, he draws his wand and places it carefully on the mantel. Then, more casually, he crosses the room to the window. She watches him in confusion.

"Anything of value had a tongue-tying curse placed upon it long ago," he says slowly, his back turned. "You will only get it from me by force."

She walks towards him, slowly, as understanding dawns. "You mean -"

Her father only bows his head. It is acquiescence enough.

Tentatively, she places a hand on his shoulder. Leans in and says gently behind his ear, _"Legilimens."_

_[Chameleon 2: By Force](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Chameleon-2-By-Force-422720954) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

She searches his mind, bypassing one memory after another. From the corner of her eye she sees long-forgotten boyhood fumblings with Abraxas Malfoy and another boy she does not recognise. Understands suddenly why he had been so criminally complacent about Rodolphus.

But Rodolphus is no longer her concern. He is her past. The Dark Lord is her future.

She finds him in the Defence Against The Dark Arts classroom. It is empty of all but him and her father. They are cleaning desks by hand; detention, by the looks. The Dark Lord - Tom, in her father's mind - he opens a cupboard, poised to put cleaning supplies away.

She sees the _void_ of the boggart as it peers into Tom's mind, identifying his fears. Sees the void turn inside out, revealing a haggard young woman on a little bed, eyes open and dead, propped up on pillows, a baby cradled in her protective yet lifeless arms.

The colour falls from Tom's face, but he points his wand with the same fearlessness in the face of the enemy as he does now. Shouts, _"Riddikulus!"_

The boggart remains unchanged. 

_"Riddikulus!"_ he says again. "Change, damn you!" Shoots a look at Cygnus, then darts into his mind, in search of something. Anything.

 _"Riddikulus!"_ he says desperately, for the third time.

This time the dead woman stirs, and says, "It's no good, Tom. Death is coming for you, as it does for everyone. You and everyone who loves you included. It's the way of the world."

"Like _hell,"_ he says through gritted teeth, and this time he doesn't bother with the _Riddikulus._ Just sends a wordless blast of _Reducto_ and the whole thing is destroyed, boggart and cupboard both.

"Tom," her father says tentatively, but Tom's whiplash glare silences him. His tongue-tying curse silences him on the subject forever.

Bella has seen enough; she moves on.

Another memory. Dinner with Grandmother and Grandfather Black. Tom has followed the rules of their world, and been greeted in the cautiously reserved way that one greets one's inferiors - polite, but ready to cut at the first infraction. But they are loosening up now, charmed by his intelligence and his sparkling conversation. Grandmother has even unbent enough to whisper approval in Cygnus' ear.

Dinner is served, and she sees him falter. Just a fraction of a second. Unnoticed by either adult. Feels him slide into her father's mind, searching quickly for the moment where _he_ learned to do this. Cygnus, apparently accustomed to this by now, guides him to the moment of his Elfnanny's approval, clapping hands signifying that he has gotten it exactly right.

Confidently, Tom lifts his knife and fork, and goes on with the meal.

She stays there, watching a while, but she has seen what she needed to see. Reluctantly, she slides out of her father's mind.

He is still looking out the window, and she kisses his temple. It is the first time she has kissed him since her disastrous, unsuccessful wedding night.

"Bellatrix," he says awkwardly as she pulls away, "I really am sorry." 

"I know," she says, curt but soft, and she does.

Unbending a little, he says, "I hope you can find a way to be happy with him."

"But you wouldn't have chosen him for me. Would you?"

That grimace is back. "No. I wouldn't."

Perhaps she wouldn't either, in an ideal world, but he is her only option, besides what she has now. And what she has now is intolerable. 

"Well. I don't have a lot of options. And he has a vested interest in keeping me happy. They won't forgive him if he doesn't."

"I suppose that's true," her father says morosely.

There is nothing more to say, so they leave it at that.

* * *

Their joining is announced, discreetly and without fanfare, as you would announce a private wedding at a time of family mourning.

Rodolphus makes the announcement at a small gathering of friends. Madam Lestrange and the Dark Lord have agreed to spend their lives together. Neither his marriage to her, nor their absence of one is mentioned; neither is the word _mistress._ It is all very euphemistic and tactful, and received with equal diplomacy. It is celebrated with subdued toasts, kind words about the protection of their privacy from an outside world too primitive to understand. The unspoken message is clear: their pseudo-marriage is accepted, and they will be sheltered and defended. It is a politically and socially delicate exercise, but it is successful.

_[Chameleon 3: The Announcement](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Chameleon-3-422721236) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

She will continue to keep rooms at the Lestrange estate, and they will continue to entertain there. She will meet outsiders there, corset-makers and milliners and the directors of charities. But she will also live with _him,_ in rooms adjoining his. She has lived an emancipated life for nearly two years; the independence of the arrangement suits her as much as it suits him.

So she is prepared for what it is to be his mistress.

She is not prepared for what it is to be his lover.

* * *

It's an acceptable first time, as first times go, and halfway through she realises why. 

It nags at her at first. There is a familiarity about what he does and how he does it, and she can't put her finger on why.

It's the way he uses his hands that gives it away. The way he starts slowly with them, opening her until finally she can accommodate him. It isn't an uncommon technique among the more considerate husbands. (Men would _die_ if they knew what women talked about over their pastel high teas, she's certain of it). 

But beginning with his _ring_ finger is a special detail - one that could only have come from her brother-in-law. She had been stunned when Narcissa had confided that arrogant, boorish Lucius had taken the trouble to learn that this finger was the weakest, and therefore the gentlest for the purpose.

There is no question in her mind how _he_ came by the knowledge. The Dark Lord does not ask for advice. He enters minds and takes the knowledge he needs by stealth. It is how he assimilated into a foreign world. He learned of her virginity from Rodolphus, then the accepted means of addressing the problem from Lucius.

It touches her that he has been careful with her. It troubles her that he is acting out Lucius' script.

The earth does not move, for him or for her, but they consummate their union with only very minimal discomfort, and even some mild stirrings of enjoyment on her part. She can see a glimmer - just a glimmer - of the sly mischief, the secret _knowing_ among the luckier women. Knowledge she had regarded with rather detached envy.

He did not join with her for this, she knows, and there is no intention of children on either side. They are acting out a social norm for lack of any other rules more suited to their situation. 

But Rodolphus hurt her, for all that he never meant to, and she cannot live with another rejection. Necessity will keep the Dark Lord bound to her, but not as her lover. Only she can do that.

She thinks all this as he drapes his arm around her afterwards. He does it awkwardly. The script is failing him, she thinks, and if she doesn't break him free of it, she will lose him.

Casually, she sits up, breaking his stiff embrace. Turns to face him, drawing her knees up to her chest. Strokes down his stomach with idle fingertips. Observes the way muscles stiffen, unaccustomed to tender touch, then let go again. 

It is the letting go that gives her hope. Rodolphus could not.

"Thank you," she says softly.

"For what?" he asks brusquely.

She gathers her courage. "For finding out what was required."

His eyes widen, just a fraction, and she feels the _slide_ of him into her mind, in and out just as quickly. His mouth forms a grim line.

"Damn Cygnus," he mutters, and she reaches out, stroking back his hair with soothing fingers. He watches her warily, but doesn't pull away.

"You don't have to do it like Lucius," she goes on, undeterred. "You can do it how _you_ like it."

The look that enters his eyes, alarmed and confused, tells her instantly that he doesn't _know_ how he likes it. That like the rest of his life, whatever he has done before has been a role, assumed as a means to an end. He stiffens, and she knows then that she has only the briefest second left before he shuts down, before she loses him.

"I know what you like," she offers quickly.

Those muscles in his stomach loosen again, just a little. "Go on," he says with a rather thin sound of amusement.

She allows herself just the briefest moment of relief. It dawns on her that this union will be a series of these careful moments, tiny victories that keep him with her, keep him _himself_ with her.

"You like to _own._ You like to possess. You like a thing to be _yours,_ forever. So it can never be taken away."

His jaw hardens into a line. _"Damn_ Cygnus."

She straddles him, bold move propelled by the knowledge that this is her only chance. It is all or nothing. She cradles his face between her palms. Kisses him fiercely. 

"I'm yours," she whispers. "So own me. Take what's yours." 

She has no idea what he will do, whether it will be pleasurable or perverse, but it will be _him,_ it will be skin against skin, and it is this that she cannot endure another union without.

As though unleashed by her words, his hand is instantly in her hair, pulling her into a crushing kiss. His free hand is on her back, not just his hand but his whole forearm, pressing her, pressing her. Her breasts are hard against his chest but he seems not to notice, all his focus on engulfing her as deeply as he can. 

_[Chameleon 4: Mine](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Chameleon-4-Take-What-s-Yours-422721621) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

It takes her breath away, takes every carefully calculating thought about him and drives it all from her mind. Before, she was trying to draw him out; now she wants only to draw him in. Wants him to consume her as he wants to consume. The hunger she has carefully protected and silenced spills over. All she wants is to _join,_ and he _wants_ to join with her. The realisation fills her with gratitude; it floods her mind and her body, bringing desire and warmth and rushing fluid with it.

He rolls her over, onto her back, and holds her down, covering her with his body. Filling her space, her mind, her world, every inch of her against him. His eyes blaze hunger into hers, the greedy hunger of a child. Unrestrained by strictures and by _shoulds_. His hips grind into hers, hardness parting softness, sliding over the most tender part of her there until she bears down, all agonising need, wanting him inside her like she's never wanted anything. She'd never dreamed she could want anything so badly.

"Mine," he hisses, all fury and hunger, and plunges into her as far as he can go, making her rasp out a harsh, satisfied sound. He keeps doing that until the rasps subside, until she's come so hard and so much that there's nothing left but to let the pleasure wash over her. She is limp, unable to move of her own volition, but keeps on drinking in his fierce, hard kisses, taking him with her mouth and her core with gratitude and relief. His ability to take her this way seems endless, and nor does she want it to end. She _belongs,_ she's _wanted_ , at last, at last.

When, finally, it ends, he falls away from her, laying on the bed beside her. She gropes for his hand and holds him there, overcome with it all, fighting down idiotic tears, belated grief for what she has lost and what she has found.

His hand is unresponsive in hers, but he doesn't pull away. He's still hers.

It's enough.

* * *

They think she loved him first and became his mistress because of it. The truth of it is, she became his mistress because it was sensible, and fell in love with him, deeply, irrevocably, in the course of it.

She never expected to love him, any more than she expected him to love her. At best, she had hoped for companionship and the physical affection her husband could not give her. Even her efforts to reach the man inside him had only ever been a means to that end.

She had reckoned without the power of what she had found.

So now she watches him with adoring eyes that bemuse even herself, in her quieter moments. She never knew she had such a thing within her. It isn't selflessness, but something deeper still, a self- _forgetting_ that exhilarates and frees her. 

In her self-forgetting, she has stripped away his default behaviour, to be exactly what she needs, because she needs only to be with him. In so doing, she has become what he needs. Someone who will love what he is and not who he portrays.

She does. She loves it all. The flawed, hungry child, who became a flawed, hungry man. The man who craves, who devours. His wanting is greedy and relentless, taking the barren plains of her marriage and consuming them with fire. He burns her with his endless, endless need. He heals her, in each searing, scorching moment. Each kiss. Each unyielding embrace.

He overwhelms her. Possesses her. Completely.

She has never felt so free in her life.

END OF CHAMELEON

* * *

**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  



	3. Not Loveless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What they have isn't loving, but it isn't loveless, either. Bella's first night home from Azkaban.

  
**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  


* * *

Bellatrix lands in a heap on her bed at Malfoy Manor.

It is an unceremonious landing, thrust there by the man who plucked her from the remains of her cell in Azkaban, his robes rippling in the sea breeze as it swirled up through walls ripped asunder.

He has not identified himself; there is no need. Only her brother-in-law can pass through the wards of this house unimpeded. She doesn't need to look at his mask to know it, and she hasn't tried. She is a wraith, a fragile little wreck of a thing, and she will not bear his scrutiny. For now, her hair is all she will willingly let him see.

Lucius rubs his palms together, a little compulsively. "You should wash up," he says grimly, nodding his head towards her ensuite. A wrinkle of distaste flits across his features as he charms himself clean of the worst of Azkaban's grime. "I'll send the elves to help you."

"You will not," comes a familiar voice from the threshold that separates her room from her Lord's, and Lucius starts visibly, revulsion and dread flickering across his features. "Your wife will attend to her."

Bella draws in her breath in a rush. Turns, instinctively towards his voice, but he is a mere shadow in the darkness. "My Lord," she whispers. 

_[Not Loveless 1: Arrival](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Not-Loveless-1-Arrival-422722179) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

"My Lord, my wife is not a nursemaid," Lucius protests. "The elves are fully capable -"

"Silence," her Lord rebukes. "Your sister-in-law is a martyr to the Cause, which is more than I can say for you. How long did you wait after my injury to begin to feign the _Imperius,_ Lucius? An hour? Two?"

"My Lord-"

"Not to mention that she is my consort, which alone should command your respect."

Lucius says hurriedly, "I do respect her, and you both, my Lord, you must know this. You are both guests in my home, as you have always been. Rodolphus, too. We protect him as you and she have protected him. What you honour, we honour. That is our loyalty and our way."

Bella speaks, and it pleases her that her voice, at least, is strong. "As I recall, Lucius, the reason so many in our circle knew of Rodolphus' _preferences_ , and our resulting estrangement, was that you were incapable of keeping your mouth shut."

Lucius shoots her a look that seems to suggest that if he had not, she would not have been free to become her Lord's wife-in-all-but-name when the politically expedient moment had presented itself. However, perhaps discerning that bickering with a visibly-exhausted prisoner of war would not paint him in the best of lights, he remains wisely silent.

"Your wife, Lucius," her Lord says again, more severely. "Go." 

Lucius goes.

* * *

She sits there in silence, looking on his silhouette, feeling warring joy and discomfort. Painfully aware of the way the years have ravaged her.

Perhaps sensing her discomfort, he crosses over the threshold separating their bedchambers, and passes her wordlessly by. He goes to the tallboy, and leans forward on it, inspecting his reflection in the mirror above in the light of the candles there. She can see only shadows and shapes in the darkened room, but he is without hair, she can see that much. She realises that like her, he has paid a heavy price for his survival.

"Indeed," he says mirthlessly, catching the thought from across the room.

She wants to come closer, to look closer. To look into his eyes after so long.

The lines of him seem to tense, but he nods. "You may do so."

She hesitates, just a fraction. "I'm filthy."

"If that mattered, I would not have said it."

There is no answer to that, so she falls silent and rises to her feet.

Tentatively, she approaches him from behind. His reflection gradually reveals itself to her as she draws closer and the candles draw nearer.

It is strange, seeing his face flipped around in his reflection like that. She absorbs that stupidly mundane thought even before she absorbs the changes in him, the dead-white skin, the wiry sinew clinging to bone where once it had been wrapped around muscle, the way parts of his face have atrophied. The eyes are still _him,_ but so much else is not.

"My snake, Nagini, kept me alive," he murmurs, "but at a price. A snake's milk does not fully nourish the things that her young do not need. The rebirthing ritual is not perfect at the best of times, and it relies on one's cellular makeup. If it has been altered..."

She stares at them in the mirror, him in his new form, her in a wretched facsimile of her old one. Absorbing this. There is a reason he made Lucius bring her home rather than do it himself. There is a reason he has shown himself in this darkened room. Her next words will decide everything. For their ever-fragile, ever-awkward relationship, and perhaps for him as well. The look of unconscious revulsion Lucius had shot him had not been lost on her.

She says slowly, "I never lost faith. But not even I could have imagined your determination. Your strength." Tentatively, she places a hand on his shoulder. He tenses a moment, and then relaxes into her palm. She strokes his cheek with the backs of her fingers. "Such a gift she gave you. Such a gift."

He relaxes into her a little more. Says awkwardly, grudgingly, "And a - a gift, to have you home again, too, Bella."

She has missed this, the way he hoards every tiny bit of fondness like gold, and yields them just as stingily. He is a greedy man, greedy for her and greedy with himself, and every concession is precious.

Something wry enters his voice. "I had forgotten, Bella, how very well you know me. It's rather disconcerting." There is warmth there, too, that belies his words, and she offers a tentative smile in return.

She is filthy, so she doesn't kiss him, but she wants to.

He relaxes all the way then, and gently, he pulls away and withdraws to his chamber. 

* * *

"Bella, we need to cut these out and start again."

Narcissa says this from her seat beside the bathtub, where she is working painstakingly on the knots in her hair. She has been doing so for the better part of an hour. Bella is onto her third tub of water. The first had turned black; the second light brown. The third is blessedly clear.

For the first time since her release, Bella feels stinging tears rise up. Her chest grows tight. _"No._ Cissy, no, not that. They took so much, I'm not giving them my hair as well-"

Her Lord appears in the doorway, lightning fast. As though he had been sitting in her bedchamber, waiting. "You will not," he says to Narcissa, severely. "If she wants her hair, she will have it."

"My Lord, these braids have been growing and matting into each other for months. Maybe years. It's impossible."

The lines of his mouth tighten, almost imperceptibly, and he makes a sound of irritation. "Do I look like a woman to you? Must I do everything myself?" He strides into the room and sits down at Bella's side. Takes up one of her braids and begins separating out strands, one by one with his fingernails, and holds the results out for Narcissa's inspection. "That is how it is done. All it takes is devotion and patience. Things your sister knows more about than you."

"Yes, my Lord," Narcissa says meekly, and continues with her labours. An uncomfortable silence falls.

Bella breaks the moment. "How is Rodolphus?"

"Quiet," Narcissa says curtly. "The Healer says he'll be all right with time. His bones are brittle, though. He's unlikely to lead in battle again."

Bella nods. "He wouldn't go near the windows. He was afraid of the Dementors. I did, though. I wanted to stay strong."

"Of course you did," her Lord says, with something in his voice that _almost_ hints at warmth.

"He said you looked after him," Narcissa says, shooting her Lord a curious look.

"Up to a point. We looked after each other, really. Like the rest of our marriage, it was an arrangement of convenience." This is mostly true. In fact, for the first time since his wretched admission that he could not be a husband to her, or to any woman, Bella has come to regard Rodolphus with a certain grudging warmth. His compulsion to make amends had not waned with the years, and she had needed his protection in Azkaban more than she cared to admit.

Her Lord says sharply, "Why did you need protection?"

Damn, she thinks, closing her eyes for a long moment. He heard the thought. She'd taught herself not to censor her thoughts with him - that was one of the fragile ties that bound them - but this one she would have buried if she could. 

She feels the _slide_ of him into her mind, and reluctantly, she guides him to the memory he seeks.

His lips tighten into a thin line. "They called you my whore, and they hurt you." It isn't a question.

Reluctantly, she nods. "Frank Longbottom was one of our kind. He knew about Rodolphus, and he knew of our...our arrangement. He'd shared the intelligence with the Aurors. They came for me in Azkaban."

"What did they do?" Narcissa asks with dread.

"They force-fed me herbs," she says, conceding some of the truth to her sister, but not all. "They said they weren't risking the Dark Lord's bastard coming into the world." 

She doesn't say that they took turns with her, so that even if she did bring forth a child, no one would ever know for sure whose it was. She doesn't say that they'd done it in front of the other prisoners, which was as good as giving them carte blanche to do the same after they were gone. Rodolphus and Rabastan and Barty had protected her as much as they could, but they were all weakened, and none of them could stop it all the time.

Finally, she had lured one of her assailants close to a window, and sent forth her thoughts until the Dementors hovered devastatingly near. At the very last second, she had turned her attacker's face to them, and scrambled out from beneath him and away. There were no more violations after that.

That was when she had taken to sitting by the window. The Dementors were a comfort. They protected her. They made her strong.

Something in her Lord's face _flickers_ as the memory fades. "Who?"

_[Not Loveless 2: Narcissa Tends](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Not-Loveless-2-Narcissa-Tends-422733339) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

Wordlessly, she gives him the names. Aurors and prisoners both.

"Very well," he says grimly, and, rising, he strides from the room.

A few minutes later, he returns. He pauses in the doorway, and says, "The five who still live will be in the dungeon by sunrise. You will dispose of them as you see fit."

She gives a single incline of her head. "Thank you, my Lord."

Nodding, he turns and leaves them.

* * *

"He doesn't love you, you know."

Narcissa says this softly some time later, her fingers still delicately parting the knots in Bella's hair.

There are so many ways she could answer that, most of them verboten. The hardest part about loving him, she thinks, is not the ways in which he is damaged, but that she cannot speak of them to another. To do so, to reveal his flaws to those he led, would be the greatest betrayal of all. 

She is fiercely protective of the little boy he had been, mother stolen by death, able to harm those who harmed him without proportion, suspected by those who were supposed to care for him as a result. And then released into the care of a new home where he was suspected too, without regard for the ways he had been made into what he was and without effort to help him heal. She blames that damned school for the emotional scars he bears, his inability to return her love. If Dumbledore hasn't paid by the time this war is done, she will hunt him down and see to it herself.

That beloved, hungry boy is her deepest secret, hidden even from his adult self. She will take him to her grave.

In the absence of a usable and meaningful answer, she settles for a neutral, "Why do you say so?"

Narcissa gives a little puff of exasperation. "He left you there for _six months_ after his return. He wants you to punish the people who hurt you, and yet he let it happen!"

Bella gives a rather wry sound. "Do you imagine I would be any less maimed had I been there six months less? One reaches a point of no return, you know." She goes on, "He came for me when the time was right."

"Right for _him,"_ Narcissa snaps. "When he needed you for the Cause, and no earlier."

She can't suppress a laugh. "Is that what you think?"

"Wasn't it?"

After a long pause, Bella says, "Imagine that Lucius had paid such a price for survival as our Lord has done. Imagine him looking in the mirror, and no longer seeing himself. Would you begrudge him a little time to...to hope for being restored? Before he came and showed himself to you?"

Narcissa's hands still. "Vanity?" she says, thunderstruck. "You're saying it was vanity?"

 _Something so much deeper than vanity,_ she wants to say, but that would be going too far. She will defend him, yes, but not expose his chasms and his grief. Not to people who see him as a monster.

She says only, "He does not have to earn my love. That you think he does says more about you than him."

Narcissa's fingers begin to move once more. They are tense now, picking hard where they had previously been gentle. "What happened to you, Bella? You had so much strength and fire. Where did you go?"

"What happened to me? Rodolphus didn't want me. I had to find other things to live for. I found the Cause, and it gave me purpose. It made me stronger. Then I found _him_." She says coldly, "You underestimate the strength it takes to love without need of love in return."

"Strength? Don't you mean obsession, and a lack of self-respect?"

"How much self-respect do you think it takes to be self-sufficient? To rely on no one but yourself?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Narcissa's head shaking from side to side. "You really believe all this, don't you? That there's some twisted sort of virtue in this wreck of a relationship? Tell me, Bella, did he plant all this in your head? Or did you come up with it yourself, to rationalise it all away?"

That hits a nerve. Just a little. Just enough.

"You know, Narcissa, I think I would like the elves to look after me after all."

Narcissa thrusts her hair down with an exasperated sigh, and rising, she leaves her.

* * *

It is hours before her hair is done. 

Clean at last, she gets up from the bath and moves to the bed, dozing a little as the elves move around her, mostly in blessed silence. Her aunt Walburga's elf Kreacher is there - she doesn't know how or why - and he mutters indignantly about the terrible people who hurt her so and how one day they will pay. This she finds oddly soothing.

Finally, as the grey light of dawn begins to streak across the sky, it is done, her hair baby-soft and fragile like a child's. The elves place a soft, cream-coloured silk robe around her shoulders. It feels like heaven.

She crosses the room to the connecting door, and pauses on the threshold. His bed has not been slept in. His room mirrors hers, and he stands there at his own mirror atop his own tallboy, looking. Just looking.

She wonders how long he has stood there, and how often he does so.

She pads into the room, loudly enough to announce her presence, softly to allow him his peace. Reaches him, and rests her cheek against his shoulder.

They take in their reflections together.

"We are not what we were," he murmurs. There is a _greyness_ in his voice as he says it.

"No," she says grimly. "We are more."

_[Not Loveless 3: We Are More](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Not-Loveless-3-Not-What-We-Were-422763544) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

He turns to look at her, whiplash-fast, his eyes suddenly glittering in the dim light. Takes her face firmly between his hands.

 _He still wants me,_ she thinks in a rush of relief. _Thank Merlin._

Then his mouth is upon her, feeding on her, all greed and possession. She gulps down fresh air between deep, dark kisses, love and need making her molten and boneless against him. 

"They thought they could take you away from me," he murmurs into her cheek. "They were wrong."

She closes her eyes then, knowing he has found, tucked away beneath her memories, her deepest fear - that he would reject her for what they have done to her.

He lifts her face to look at him, and she opens them again. "They were wrong," he says again. "I do not forgive the theft of what is mine. I take it back."

_[Not Loveless 4: They Were Wrong](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Not-Loveless-4-They-Were-Wrong-422780343) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

Fleetingly, it occurs to her that Narcissa would disapprove. Disapprove of her being an _it_ , a thing to be stolen. But Narcissa doesn't understand, has never understood. She can live without his love, but to live without _belonging?_ No. Not that.

He is nodding. He understands this about her. He always has.

"Then take me back," she says. She says it urgently, her hands on his shoulders. "I want you to." 

She wills him to understand. She loves what he has become as much as what he has been. Theirs has always been a relationship built on what she doesn't say, things he cannot bear to hear fall from her lips, left instead as fragments for him in her mind. She wills him to find them now.

He finds them. She sees it in the relief in his eyes.

"Take me back," she says again, and his mouth is on her once more, his body guiding her back to the bed.

What they have isn't loving, exactly, she thinks as they settle into the bed together, but it isn't loveless either. It is the greed of drinking each other in, the need of join and release. It is the way he eclipses her with his body, blocking out everything but him. It is the way he eclipses her mind, driving out every hurt. It is finding unpleasant changes, hollows and ridges of bones, and finding each other beneath them. It is hesitation, then liberation, as they try out their bodies in the dark, parts of him new, parts of her long closed. 

There is dark beauty in this, she thinks, despite everything. Despite that they had found each other by chance and expediency. Despite the things they both have lost, or never had to start with.

He will never love her, she knows. Never hold her as she holds him. But he will value her, her presence, her devotion. He will let her love him. He will be a home for her. He will keep her close, where she belongs, and woe betide anyone who tries to take her away.

They are not what they were, but she still has that.

It's enough.

END OF NOT LOVELESS

* * *

**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  



	4. Dark Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has always been her gift, to peer into the darkness and see the beauty there. Bella's descent into madness.

  
**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  


* * *

Her first night home from Azkaban is the lull before the storm.

He knows it the next day, when she wakes to thunder and rain, and she thrusts the bedcovers aside and bolts for the window. Stands there, bracing hands against the windowframe, and screams peals of demented laughter. Opens the latch and stretches out her hands, wide open to raindrops. "Please," she cries out, not in anguish, but desire, breasts arched forward, head fallen back. Her spine is arched, mimicking how she stretches out beneath his hands.

He rises, slowly, evenly, but more from self-discipline than calm. Shrugs on his robe, and bends to lift hers from where it is puddled on the floor. He moves to her side. Places it around her shoulders.

"Bella."

_[Dark Knight 1: Darkness Rising](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Knight-1-Darkness-Rising-422722723) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

The naked longing in her features when she turns to look at him is like a bolt of lightning. It has a different tenor to her normal ardour. Her gaze is streaked with desperation. Like hanging on to a lifeline. 

Her mouth is on him. Demanding. Furious.

She has never _demanded_ before. She is a submissive lover. She longs to be owned, surrenders to it gratefully. Even when she takes the lead, it is to draw him up to meet her, and then she yields with a sigh.

But now she's grasping at him. She's wrapping her legs around him, clenching with all her strength. She's climbing him like a fucking _tree,_ damn it, and it isn't quite _her_ but it's hot as hell anyway.

He groans out her name as he's never groaned it before.

_Fuck._

It's rather like being manhandled by a particularly rough and grinding machine, but he doesn't mind. He hadn't completely let go with her the night before - he'd been wary of his new body, unsure of its cooperation - and the way she rides him hard and milks him dry exorcises all his hateful fears.

But after she settles into a fitful sleep, he settles beside her, studying her thoughtfully. This new development worries him.

Unpredictability worries him at the best of times, and an unpredictable Bellatrix is a more worrying prospect again. For all their peaceable co-existence down the years, political expedience turned to a rather odd kind of mutual enjoyment, he has never forgotten that she is a wild thing, a predator. She has put her gifts to good use for the Cause, and has surrendered to him out of devotion, but he is under no illusions. She is a strong witch, fundamentally ungovernable. Were she unwilling to be governed by _him,_ he would not even try. He would simply kill her. He has, he thinks, a healthy respect for her nature.

The idea that she is no longer fully governed by herself...

"Please," she whispers. Hands flexing and clutching at the sheets.

Thoughtfully, he slips into her mind. Wonders what chaotic thing he will see there.

To his surprise, what he sees is not chaotic at all. It is a memory, complete, undistorted. It has a certain gleaming light to it, though the setting is dark. It is a memory she holds with some warmth.

She is in Azkaban, sitting by the window. Staring at the Dementors, flying outside. There is softness around her eyes. Her gaze is drawn longingly at the dark void of their form.

It has always been her gift, he thinks, to peer into the darkness and see the beauty there.

"My love," she whispers. "My Lord. Please come. Please."

The Dementors draw near – when had they ever resisted such a beseeching victim? - but then they pause. She is reaching out, hands outstretched in the rain, begging to be drawn into their darkness. Not begging for death - many beg for that - but begging to be consumed. She sees something of _him_ in them - understands what they are - and she longs for it anyway.

It is her understanding that makes them pause. They see something like them in her, and it draws them, but they resist her as well. They see her love for what they offer, freely given, and it is something they do not know how to accept. They are poised, neither approaching nor pulling away.

The _tension_ he perceives in them is unsettlingly familiar.

"Please," she whispers in her memory. Hugging herself against the window. It seems to dawn on her that they will be companions to her, but not draw her close.

It is this realisation that breaks her. She crumples. Doubles over, choking out her grief.

He withdraws from her mind.

She's shivering.

"Please," she whispers again, tugging the sheets tighter around her. Her voice is streaked with desolation.

Alarmingly, he feels something _soften_ within him. He doesn't know if it's the power of her memory, or just his suspicion that _normal_ Bella will never remember these moments. (He is already sure there will be more). 

Whatever it is, it strikes him hard in the chest, and he _hates_ it. If it were anyone but Bella, he would kill her on the spot just to make it go away.

But her devotion is a pleasing thing to him, and no-one else's is quite like it. It is honest. Utterly without self-interest. Utterly unconditional. 

For that, he will tolerate a lot.

He is no white knight, and she has never wanted one. But right now, she longs for a dark one, and it occurs to him that he could give her that.

With reluctant tenderness, he reaches out. Strokes back that wild hair. "Bella," he murmurs. "Be still."

With a hitching breath, she stills. 

Moving slowly, he covers her body with his. Drapes his torso over her back. Rests his brow in her hair. He doesn't take her hand, but he lays his on the back of hers, and she clenches her fingers, curling her knuckles hard up around his. This is the thing she loves most, to be pressed beneath him, firm but not hard into bedding, every part of her covered by him. Whether she drowns in his eyes or drowns in the darkness of pillows matters less than the drowning itself, the undertow of losing herself in him. It arouses her and satisfies her, but more than anything, it soothes the fires of her brilliant, burning mind.

Perhaps it will soothe her now. 

"My love," she whispers. Shifts further beneath him. Opening for him. "Please-"

He takes it slow this time, setting a lazy, languid pace. Filling her fully, and resting there inside her before doing it again. Soothing her with movements that are slow-rolling and rhythmic and calm. She is not asleep, but not really awake either. More like a highly suggestible state in between.

"I was always there," he murmurs deep in her ear as she lazily rises towards her climax, and it isn't entirely a lie. During his years of exile, he had missed her. Rather more than he liked to admit.

"I know," she sighs, and a flash comes to him - just a flash - of her hand outstretched beseechingly in the rain.

"Not only like that," he says, sliding into her mind. Inserts himself into her memory. Drops down beside her grieving form. Draws her close. Makes love to her as he has never made love to her in life. 

It is a carefully calculated lie, but it is a gentle one. 

_[Dark Knight 2: The Gentle Lie](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Knight-2-The-Gentle-Lie-422723046) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

He has used his powers to heal before. Rarely, and only for a practical use, but he has done it. This is different. He wants her to be well to serve his purposes, yes, but he also just wants her to be well. She is a glorious thing, Pure and proud and single-minded and adoring and ruthless and strong, everything that is perfect about their kind, and he wants her that way again.

When she comes, in her counterfeit memory and in life as well, it is with a wrenching sob of relief.

When, at last, he settles alongside her and she opens her eyes, they are calm and sane. Her gaze is watchful. He wonders how much she remembers, how much she knows of what he has done to her mind.

"I love you," she says in a low voice, not quite looking at him, and he thinks she remembers it all.

She rarely says it directly like that, though it is a continual undercurrent, rolling along on the riverbed of her mind. She speaks of it in the passive sometimes, very matter-of-factly, as an element in an equation, but no more than that. He wouldn't like it if she did.

But this time he finds it tolerable. Her...her _illness_ , he supposes, is a vacuum where the normal rules don't seem to apply. That, and that it is an offering, not a demand. She has never asked for his love in return.

"I know." 

He detaches himself from her gently. Rises.

"Get some rest, Bella," he murmurs, and he dresses and leaves her there.

* * *

Not all of her demons are so easily soothed, of course.

Some are exaggerated reactions to entirely rational triggers, but many have no obvious cause at all. Nor does he have the patience or inclination to figure them all out. The more poignant ones make his heart rather unpleasantly _twist_ , but just as many aggravate him and make him sharp and irritable with her. He doesn't try too hard to rein his annoyance in.

It isn't clear to him just how much she knows of her illness at first. Traversing her mind is like traversing the mind of the dying, memories divided by half-formed veils. He can see it all, but he doesn't know how much _she_ can see at any moment in time.

For the first time in all their years together, he is never quite able to grasp the full picture of what she is thinking. She has become an ethereal sort of enigma, dark angel to his dark knight, still _her_ enough to be his, but standing across grey, rolling mists from him as well.

Is this how his followers love, he wonders? Lucius and Narcissa, for instance? How can they love when they don't even really know each other at all? When all they know is what the other perceives well enough about themselves to reveal? He may not choose to love personally, but he has more insight into the emotion than they give him credit for, gleaned from thousands of minds over decades. But this aspect eludes his understanding entirely.

She may not know it all, but she knows enough to comprehend the nature of her illness, and to grieve for the person she once was. Melancholy seeps through her voice in her lucid moments. She trails it through her fingers along the surfaces of the house; he can see it as he sees it on the surface of her mind. It is a new undercurrent in her mind, dark twin to her ever-present love for him.

He hates that melancholy, even more than he hates her illness.

He finds himself making concessions on self-imposed boundaries set long ago. Their relationship, as a political reality, is public, but he has never treated her _differently_ before. In business settings, he still doesn't, but in more casual situations he finds himself bending. 

It is a matter of practicality. If he sees her madness beginning to rise up, sometimes - not all the time, but sometimes - he can halt it with a hand on her shoulder and a carefully-pitched utterance of her name. And he is keen to hide the full extent of her illness from his followers. If they were to see her as dangerously demented, that would be harmless, and maybe even to his advantage. But if they knew of her vulnerability, the depths of the rending of her mind...

It is Lucius who voices it. He, Narcissa, and Rodolphus all know the truth, but only Lucius is foolish enough to raise it. Narcissa has more brains than half his followers put together, and Rodolphus is Bella's self-imposed protector. His guilt regarding their wreck of a marriage has been useful.

It begins with Pennyroyal, sitting in a labelled vial casually beside Narcissa's plate at breakfast. She has always suffered women's problems. Presumably, that is why she and Lucius took so long to produce an heir.

Bella's gaze falls on the vial, and she freezes. The Aurors had force-fed it to her in prison, lest she bear his child. He sees the horror seeping into her brain even before it takes hold. Narcissa, who knows the story (this part of it, at least), sees his reaction first, then follows his line of sight to Bella and Bella's to the vial.

"Take her to her bedchamber," he says. "Now."

"Yes, my Lord," Narcissa says at once, grasping the urgency, and hurriedly brings Bella to her feet. Her breaths are coming, shivering and fast as she is led away.

He is left alone with Lucius, and he knows Lucius will raise it before Lucius himself does.

_[Dark Knight 3: Lucius](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Knight-3-Humane-422807012) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

"My Lord," Lucius says cautiously, his gaze on the doorway through which the women have just left, "you have always said that the defective should be humanely put out of their misery."

"And so they should," he says evenly. "There is no place for those who cannot pay their way in this world. A place in society is earned by contribution, not given at the expense of all."

He sees the line of Lucius' jaw harden. Clearly preparing for his wrath (and probably his wife's as well). "My Lord, Bellatrix-"

"Is not _defective,_ " he bites out. "She is a casualty of war, a martyr to our values and the vile hypocrites who claim to stand for tolerance. And she has already earned her place."

Lucius' courage is rapidly failing him, but he tries once more. "My Lord, I know you - I mean, I'm sure you care for her-"

His single, arched eyebrow and the tightening of his fingers around his glass are calculated. He knows they are more intimidating than any word he could utter.

Lucius takes a gulp of his drink, cupped in two slightly-shaking hands. "I mean, yes, my Lord."

"She is your sister, in law and in the fight," he says severely. "You will guard her from harm, and from the plotting and gossip of others too. I will know if you do not."

Lucius is too rattled to reply, but his convulsively nodding head is answer enough.

* * *

"I'm mad, aren't I?"

She says this from her stance at the window when he crosses the threshold into her room. 

It isn't really a question.

Other than to soothe her demons, he has never lied to her. It isn't that he won't. It's just that there has never been a need.

"Yes," he says, approaching her from behind. Their reflections are faint against the rolling grey mist of morning.

"Are you going to send me away?"

He shakes his head. "No."

She turns to look at him. Shock written into her features. "Why?"

It dawns on him, with crawling dread, that he doesn't actually know. His stated beliefs on the subject to Lucius were truth, but he also knows, deep down, that if it were anyone else he would have retired them harmlessly to a pleasant, safely-confined rural estate, where they could do no harm.

Keeping her at his side is dangerous. Letting her go is unthinkable.

"You need me," he says after a moment, and that _is_ a lie. For all her fragility, she does not need him to survive, and it wouldn't matter to him if she did.

Her eyes narrow, just a momentary flicker as she evaluates his words, but then she seemingly decides to let it pass.

"You love me," he corrects after a moment.

"Yes," she says. "And you love that I love you."

He looks away. "I suppose I do."

It is an accord, but it feels strangely like an impasse.

Finally, she whispers, "So what now?"

His gaze flickers back up to meet hers, standing there in her cream-coloured robe against a backdrop of grey. Shimmering warmth against lashing cold.

He has no answer. He's _never_ really had an answer with her. There is nothing to work to here, no expectations, no rules. Nothing to perceive and manipulate to his own ends. All she has ever wanted is _him_ , whatever he is, and she's the only one who's ever cared to wonder at all.

As always, when he doesn't have an answer with her, he gives her the only answer that really matters between them. The drowning. The undertow. Pulling her lovingly into his darkness.

There are veils and mists between them, he thinks as his lips settle onto hers, but in the darkness, they find each other anyway.

_[Dark Knight 4: The Drowning](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Knight-4-The-Drowning-422723235) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)._

END

**Author's Notes**

Biophilia

Biophilia means literally the love of life and living systems. The word refers here to Voldemort's inability to love things he associates with death. There is a secondary meaning, related to his ability to bond with Nagini, because in practice the word is used to refer to theories about the urge to bond with _other_ life forms (eg animals).

This story is largely derived from other people's meta. It draws heavily on [this editorial](http://www.mugglenet.com/editorials/voldylove.shtml) on MuggleNet, which questions the assumption that Voldemort cannot love, pointing out that this is only Dumbledore's theory. As much as I love the world she wrote for us, I am extremely happy to disregard JKR's comments about his conception under coercion compromising his ability to love, which I find ignorant and offensive to the many perfectly good, loving, and loved people conceived under rape, impaired consent, prostitution, and other exploitative or adverse circumstances. 

Many of the psychological elements are derived from that editorial, as well as the plot point that Bella knew of the Horcruxes, for which the author makes an excellent argument. The editorial argued that Voldemort's interactions with the ideas of love and death are real and complicated and tied to unresolved grief about his mother's death. (There was no way to explain this from Voldemort's own point of view, but I specifically intended his blinding pain when this subject arises to be stress headaches related to his unresolved trauma, and not Dumbledore's IMO ludicrous theory about love, of itself, being Voldemort's Kryptonite). I wondered whether this might be exacerbated by his magical abilities, and, possibly, an ability to see images of his mother's death in the minds of his caregivers at a young age. 

The plot point that even a Voldemort who _couldn't_ love (prior to the making of Bella's Horcrux), would appreciate a fanatically devoted lover on the basis of ego alone, came from a subsequent discussion with Gamma_Orionis. 

The plot point about Voldemort's disfigurement being a turning point in the relationship was a combination of two things. Firstly, the MuggleNet editorial, which talked about the importance of Bellatrix's unconditional love, persevering in the face of Voldemort's physical ugliness and his harshness. And secondly, of all things, a comedic ad for the Harry Potter Lego PS3 game on the Blu Ray edition of Deathly Hallows 2. In it, Lego!Voldemort is growling at his battered reflection in the mirror, then starts pulling funny faces and trying on wigs, before being sprung by an amused Lego!Bellatrix. Inspiration comes from the strangest places, no?

Chameleon

Parts of this draw on the story and surrounding legends of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles (now the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall). During Charles' more-or-less arranged marriage to Princess Diana, he and Camilla maintained a long-term affair, under the sympathetic protection of the aristocracy, who reportedly attended house parties hosted by them and treated her as his wife. This reportedly included Camilla's husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, who himself had a mistress and who would eventually be a guest at their wedding. This Bella draws on both Princess Diana, the unwitting and unwanted wife, and also Camilla, the mistress accepted as wife, while Rodolphus draws on Andrew.

I would not call the Voldemort of the Biophilia universe sociopathic, strictly, since his inability to love is post-traumatic and self-protective rather than an intrinsic feature of his personality. However, this characterisation draws heavily on the sociopathic ability to identify the traits admired or attractive to a target, and then emulate them, in order to gain their love or allegiance.

Not Loveless

One of the things I love about writing the Biophilia universe is its contradictions. Voldemort can genuinely care for Bellatrix (in his emotionally limited way) on one hand, yet let her languish in hell for six months on the other. Bella can be profoundly selfless and loving on one hand (and we see this in her love for him in canon) and yet be vicious and heartless on the other. I've also wanted to explore the strength and the self-reliance that she must have to coexist with his emotional inaccessibility for so many years, and the ways she must have rationalised her situation (and how this must look to her family). And I've longed to see the moment where she sees his new form for the first time, and what that does to them both.

I debated about the plot point regarding the assaults on Bella in prison due to her position as Voldemort's companion. It was not strictly necessary for the story. I included it, in the end, because I could not imagine the Aurors would not be aware of this piece of intelligence that was common knowledge in the aristocracy, and I could not believe that she would not be abused for it. I think the treatment of Clara Petacci, the mistress of Mussolini, was particularly front-of-mind when considering this. The wives and mistresses of defeated men in war are rarely treated well, although we are starting to see changes in this in very modern times. Bin Laden's wives appear to have been treated decently, and Kim Kyonghui, wife of executed Jang Songthaek and aunt of North Korea's Kim Jong Un, has recently surfaced in the North Korean leadership. 

For this one I had Sophie B. Hawkins' _I Need Nothing Else_ very much on my mind. It's an anthem to the push-pull of a contradictory, overpowering relationship, with lines like, _Your words may sting / you make me sing / I want to bring you everything_. I've always loved the song (it's almost twenty years old) but never matched it mentally to a couple before, but I think it might be Bellamort to a "T".

A note about wording: I used the terminology "her Lord" rather than "the Dark Lord" here. Since this is the first established-relationship story from Bella's point of view, I struggled to think of what sort of descriptors she would use for him in the privacy of her own mind. Something intimate yet suitably respectful - he tolerates her intimacy, but is still very sensitive to names. In Biophilia, it's noted that she uses endearments in lieu of names in bed, but these are probably things like "my love" and "my darling" and probably don't work when thinking of him in the third person. The third person possessive version of "my Lord" seemed to do the trick. Having said which, I don't think it's that much of a conceptual leap, though - I can't say that I often think or say my husband's name at all. He's a constant presence in my life that doesn't actually need naming, if that makes sense, and when I speak to him, he's "darling." On the odd occasions that I need to say his name (say, to call out to him in a crowd), it actually feels rather strange.

Dark Knight

Pennyroyal was used for centuries as a herbal means of inducing abortion, as well as for more general gynaecological issues such as cramps and irregular menstrual periods. 

Narcissa would have been twenty-four when she had Draco, which seems rather old for a dutiful Pureblood wife of her era. Remember, Lily and James married at eighteen, and Frank and Alice don't seem to have been much older - early marriage seems to be the norm in that society, as indeed it was in Muggle society in the 1970s. So I've theorised that Lucius and Narcissa either struggled with fertility, or tried to hold off until after the war (perhaps claiming fertility problems).

* * *

**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  



	5. Gallery (Artworks Only)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All seventeen artworks from the story. Here there be spoilers.

  
**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  


* * *

_[Biophilia 1: Nagini](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-1-Nagini-422717641) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). It dawns on Voldemort, rather unpleasantly, that Bella's tenderness towards Nagini is because she senses that the snake is part of him._

_[Biophilia 2: Let Me](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-2-Let-Me-422719104) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Bella doesn't need Voldemort to love her. She only needs him to let her love him._

_[Biophilia 3: Never Leave You](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-3-Never-Leave-You-422747720) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Bella knows Voldemort fears losing the things he possesses - including her. She tells him that she will never leave him. But Voldemort knows that she must, because she is mortal._

_[Biophilia 4: Threshold](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-4-Threshold-422719673) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Bellatrix arrives home after making a Horcrux from Igor Karkaroff, now truly the Dark Lord's forever._

_[Biophilia 5: The End](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Biophilia-5-The-End-422720155) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Bellatrix and the Dark Lord face the final battle together._

_[Chameleon 1: Be Happy](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Chameleon-1-Be-Happy-422720539) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Rodolphus, unable to be a husband to Bella, wishes her happiness with the Dark Lord._

_[Chameleon 2: By Force](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Chameleon-2-By-Force-422720954) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Bella needs to know who the Dark Lord really is, and her father has answers._

_[Chameleon 3: The Announcement](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Chameleon-3-422721236) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Rodolphus formalises Bella and the Dark Lord's partnership of political expedience by announcing it at a small gathering of friends. Neither his marriage to her, nor their absence of one is mentioned._

_[Chameleon 4: Take What's Yours](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Chameleon-4-Take-What-s-Yours-422721621) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Bella identifies Tom's Achilles heel - his need to own and to never let go._

_[Not Loveless 1: Arrival](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Not-Loveless-1-Arrival-422722179) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Bella's return from Azkaban._

_[Not Loveless 2: Narcissa Tends](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Not-Loveless-2-Narcissa-Tends-422733339) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Narcissa tends to Bella's hair after her ordeal in Azkaban._

_[Not Loveless 3: We Are More](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Not-Loveless-3-Not-What-We-Were-422763544) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Bella and Voldemort look on the toll their respective ordeals have taken._

_[Not Loveless 4: They Were Wrong](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Not-Loveless-4-They-Were-Wrong-422780343) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Voldemort tells Bella that the Aurors thought they could take her away from him, but they were wrong._

_[Dark Knight 1: Darkness Rising](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Knight-1-Darkness-Rising-422722723) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). The morning after her return from Azkaban, Bella's madness starts to become apparent._

_[Dark Knight 2: The Gentle Lie](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Knight-2-The-Gentle-Lie-422723046) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Voldemort attempts to cure Bella's madness by using Legilimency to plant a false memory that he was with her in Azkaban._

_[Dark Knight 3: Lucius](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Knight-3-Humane-422807012) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Worried by Bella's rising madness, Lucius suggests that she should be humanely put out of her misery._

_[Dark Knight 4: The Drowning](http://deslea.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Knight-4-The-Drowning-422723235) by [deslea](http://deslea.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com). Voldemort has never been able to manipulate Bella, because she expects nothing but for him to be who he is, and he has no answer for her madness, either. The only answer he's ever had with her is to drown in her, and let her drown in him._

* * *

**Quick Links:** [Biophilia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226145) | [Chameleon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226147) | [Not Loveless](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226148) | [Dark Knight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226150) | [Gallery](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1106391/chapters/2226154) | [Text-Only Version](http://archiveofourown.org/series/59116)  



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